Del director

Del director There are certain transitions in the life of a scholarlyjournal that deserve celebration. After a search that lasted four years and engaged the full resources ofthe senior staffof thisjournal and many thoughtful conversations with the Executive Committee of the Division on Medieval Spanish Language and Literature of the Modern Language Association, Professor Sol Miguel-Prendes was appointed the new Editor in Chief of La corànica. Sol, born in Ávila and with deep family roots in Asturias, is a respected authority on sentimental fiction and fifteendi-century studies. Her meticulous scholarship, bracing intelligence and great warmth bring tremendous promise to her newjob which she assumed on August 1, 2007. In mid July Sol and her endlessly cheerful husband, Martin, left Williamsburg for her home campus at Wake Forest University hauling some 16 cubic feet of active files, journal archives, and warehoused back issues. She is now up and running as Editor and has graciously appointed her predecessor Editor at Large. The entire journal staff and Executive Committee of our Division celebrates the arrival of a leader of great skill and commitment. We also gratefully acknowledge the tremendous service ofMichael Gerii (University of Virginia), retiring after fourteen years as Book Review Editor. Michael delivered an uninterrupted stream ofelegantly edited material that I never had to retouch before publication. What a luxury. MarkJohnston (DePaul University) now takes over the role of our Book Review Editor. Mark was our Associate Editor for Information Technology until Francisco Gago-Jover (College ofthe Holy Cross) stepped into that role, both Mark and Paco serving with distinction. And the crownjewel, Isidro Rivera (University of Kansas), has served as Managing Editor for fourteen years and shows no signs offlagging. His good stewardship has been a rock. The roster of the former editorial team will still appear on the tide page of the last two issues I am overseeing, Spring 2007 and an special number on The Road to Santiago and Pilgrimage, guest edited by John Moore and Thomas Spaccarelli. Prof. Miguel-Prendes and I will continue to collaborate on several dozen active submissions and projects in the coming months, with Sol's first solo issue appearing as Fall 2007. Teorge D. GreeniaLa corónica 35.2, 2007 If I am allowed a short note to bring my service to its natural conclusion, it will be to express my gratitude. I thought I had some grip on our sector of the profession when I took on thisjob. The time since has been the education of a lifetime. I marvel at the patience shown by the editorial staff and dozens of rotating members of our MLA Division board as I learned my duties and kept coming back to them for advice and to share the real work ofputting a scholarlyjournal together. I would also offer a word on the state of the discipline, something we rarely sum up for each other. I will confess at this juncture diat Isidro Rivera (who inspired the ideas and much of the language which follows) was among the first to notice and indulge a hidden agenda of mine from its first appearance. Several years ago I added "Cultural Studies" to thejournal's title to give us a little extra cachet and credibility on die critical landscape and a useful fuzziness so we could fold in content at the margins of our traditional mandate. The political debate on español and the official languages of the autonomías is a persistent one in Spain, one diat we're implicated in if only by declaring English and Spanish our only two languages ofpublication . The distinction between castellano and the otiier Iberian tongues of the Middle Ages is of limited utility for territories where linguistic hegemony and polity emerged only at the end of our period. Except for gallego-portugués, our journal has not done much that's really in the Portuguese sector and all Aragonese and Catalan concerns are framed within their trans-Iberian impact. It was clever of our founding fathers to hit on La corónica as a tide: it's a uniquely Castilian variant form tiiat's authentically antique but just cryptic enough to allow us to include whatever the...